


Under the Collar

by wordbending



Series: Her Universe [7]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Established Relationship, F/F, Trans Female Character, aka 'if your gem glows for more than four hours consult your doctor', incredibly unsubtle metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 07:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8196821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: Steven and Connie are adults, and girlfriends, and dating, and they have their own apartment now, and they've bought just one, single bed. And, in their first night sleeping in it, they're both aware of the implications.Unfortunately for Connie, so is Steven's gem - and there are unexpected perils to living with a girl with a magical space rock in her stomach.





	

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: both steven and connie are adults, steven is a trans girl. nothing explicit happens or is implied to happen, only some extremely mild nudity, extremely unsubtle metaphors, and maybe a bit of (not extreme) smooching
> 
> takes place in the same universe as [Her Universe](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6489301) and sort-of-unofficially in the same universe as [nagginggargoyle](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nagginggargoyle/)'s extremely good trans steven series [equilibrium](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6489301), which you should definitely read

Change had been a constant thing for Connie Maheswaran for the almost decade she had known Steven Universe, but even by those standards, a lot had changed over the past few years. For one thing, she wasn’t a little kid anymore – she was an adult, free from her parent’s watchful eyes, an adult with her own somewhat run down apartment. She and Steven were girlfriends (and dating!) now, and Steven was laying next to her in her pajamas, her arms wrapped around Connie in her nightie, pressed close to Steven’s stomach.

And Connie understood the implications of all that put together very well. She was so busy thinking about how they were sleeping together, alone, that she couldn’t actually sleep – and, apparently, neither could Steven. Steven was blushing an even deeper shade of red than her gem, and Connie’s breath was misting in the frigid air of cheap air conditioning, and neither one of them dared to move or to speak.

Sure, they had “slept together” before, as kids, in the same room, even in the same bed, but that was obviously different – they were capital-a Adults now. And even though they had kissed already, really kissed, something that sent a shudder through Connie to even think about, neither of them had dared to move past first base, to use a metaphor Greg might have used.

Connie desperately wanted to turn around, to give her girlfriend a tiny kiss and reassure her that it was alright, that they could just get under a blanket and go to sleep like normal non-dating adults and that they didn’t have to do anything and to be honest she wasn’t ready to do anything anyway and she wouldn’t love her any less and it was OK if Steven _never_ wanted to do anything, ha ha. But Steven’s arms around her felt so comforting, so warm, that she couldn’t bring herself to.

Actually, now that she thought about it, Steven’s arms felt _very_ warm. In fact, Steven’s whole body felt like it was getting warmer and warmer by the second, like she was running a sudden fever, and even Connie herself was starting to feel like she was being steadily microwaved – especially her back. She was even starting to sweat, which made no sense at all, because she could still see her own breath in the air.

Connie started to turn around to ask Steven what was going on and her back pressed fully against Steven’s stomach, against something very hard and very, very hot. There was a horrible noise Connie could only describe as a _sizzle_ and she instantly felt as if someone had pressed a waffle iron against the small of her back.

She yelped loudly and bolted out of the bed before Steven could get out a very confused, very concerned “Connie?!” Connie was already out of the room, practically kicking down the bathroom door, tearing off her nightgown to jump in the shower and turn on the water as cold as it would go. She hadn’t even bothered to take off any of her undergarments or close the door.

The water was freezing, the room was freezing, and in any other circumstance Connie would have felt incredibly gross and uncomfortable, but right now she could only feel a sense of relief that her back didn’t feel like it was on fire. The water against it still hurt a little, and she reached around to press her fingers against it and found that the skin was still tender. She looked out of the shower toward her nightgown on the floor – she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it was singed.

What on Earth had just _happened_?

“Connie, Connie!” Steven’s out-of-breath, mile-a-minute voice shouted over the noise of the shower. “I’m so sorry! Are you OK?! I’m not coming in!”

“I’m fine, Steven, it’s OK!” Connie shouted back, relieved to hear Steven’s voice. She couldn’t even think about being mad at her – how could she be mad at someone who responds to her girlfriend suddenly screaming and running into a shower in the middle of the night with “I’m not coming in”? Even though Steven was probably just as confused as she was, she was still a total sweetheart.

“Are... are you sure?”

“I’m sure!”

Steven went quiet after that – Connie imagined, knowing Steven, that she’d sat down next to the bathroom door to wait patiently for her to get out of the shower, probably feeling terrible about herself. Connie wanted to go to her side, to give her a much-needed hug, but the water falling on her back had gone from feeling vaguely painful to nice and soothing and her brain was very demanding that she not leave any time soon.

She still didn’t understand what had even happened. All she’d done was turn to talk to Steven and she’d rammed right into...

“Oh my god, Steven,” she said, practically hissing out the next words. “Were you... _aroused?”_

There was a long pause.

“Oh my _godddddddd,”_ Steven moaned. Her voice, already barely audible over the shower, was muffled.

“You were!” Connie gasped, reeling. She heard a soft _whump_ from outside, the sound of Steven probably having flopped over. In spite of her brain’s protests, Connie turned around and turned the faucet off before stepping out of the shower, grabbing a towel off the rack and wrapping it around herself. Her bare feet squelching on the tile floor, she walked over to sit down next to the open door, bringing her knees to her chest.

“Steven?” she tried. Steven only groaned.

Connie coughed awkwardly, feeling the blood rise to her cheeks. “It’s... it’s OK... if you were. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“That’s never happened to me before,” said Steven’s still-muffled voice from the next room. She sounded like she wanted to bury herself twenty feet underground.

“Never?” Connie repeated. She blushed deeper, wondering if she should be flattered.

“Never.” Steven’s voice no longer sounded like it was coming from under her hands, although it didn’t sound any less humiliated. “Well... not like that. When we... when we became Stevonnie, or when we... we kissed, or even just being around you, sometimes, I could feel my gem getting... warm? Or it’d start to, you know, glow? But I didn’t think anything of it, really.”

Connie nodded. She’d noticed – the glow under Steven’s clothes, the sense of warmth coming from Steven’s stomach when she’d had her fingers wrapped in Steven’s curls and Steven’s huge hands bracing her shoulders. The way Steven’d get all sweaty and wobbly, like she’d been overcooked. But didn’t everybody get that way? Even she got that way sometimes - minus a glowing rock in her stomach. So she’d just thought it was kind of cute.

“That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Well, I mean, your gem is like... you, right?” Connie waved her hands in front of herself vaguely. “So I guess it’s sort of like, if you feel good, it... feels good? Ugh, what am I saying...”

“No, no, I get it. I think. But I’ve definitely never _hurt_ anybody with it before... are you sure you’re OK?”

“It does sting a little,” Connie admitted, resisting the urge to prod that still tender part of her back. Quickly, she added, “But I’ll be fine! It’s not that bad.”

“I’m soooooo sorry,” Steven groaned, voice muffled again.

“Really, it’s fine! It’s not like you did it on purpose.” Connie paused, thinking something over. She noticed, absently, that she had started to play with her fingers, her hands interlocked over her stomach. “Look, Steven... why don’t you come in?”

“C-come in?” Steven sputtered.

“I’m in a towel!” Connie replied quickly. “And I still have my, you know, things on. It’s fine.”

Steven didn’t say anything back. Connie heard a creak of floorboards as Steven muttered something to herself, her voice becoming closer and then further away and then back again – was she pacing? - before, finally, the door to the bathroom creaked as it was opened the rest of the way. Connie looked up to see a very pink Steven halfway poking her way into the doorframe.

No matter how much bigger she got or how many years passed, she still stayed that sweet, innocent fourteen-year old kid she used to be in so many ways – it just made Connie love her that much more.

Connie rose to her feet and, keeping one hand wrapped around her towel, closed the distance between her and Steven. Before Steven could react, she wrapped her other arm around Steven’s waist and pulled her in, walking backwards into the bathroom.

Steven looked dizzy, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Connie giggled, although she wasn’t blushing any less herself, especially when she noticed the bathroom begin to fill with a pink light, when she felt the warm glow of Steven’s gem so close to her own stomach.

“See?” Connie said. “It’s fine.”

“Yeah,” Steven stammered, blinking. “Yeah, I’m fine! Just fine!”

“Steven,” Connie half-chided, half-laughed. She wanted to just pull her in and kiss her, but she knew it’d just make it a lot worse. “We live together. I’m your girlfriend. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Right. Girlfriend, right.” Shutting her eyes tight, Steven took a deep breath and shook her head. “Yeah, I’m... OK.”

Then she opened her eyes again, took one look at Connie, and instantly turned a deep shade of red, burying her head in her hands.

“Steven!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You’re just... you’re just really pretty! And, and... naked, and... I mean...”

“I am _not_ naked,” Connie laughed. How they had managed to get this far into their relationship without Steven spontaneously combusting was beyond her. “And... you’re really pretty too, Steven. _Really_ pretty.”

Steven opened one eye, peering between her fingers. “Really?”

“Really!” Connie replied, leaning forward and kissing Steven on the forehead. Connie half-expected her to faint, but reassuringly, she broke into giggles, lowering her hands to her bright red cheeks. Connie smiled down at her, but after a moment, looked away, biting her lip.

Just how was she supposed to say what she had brought Steven in here to say?

“But, Steven,” she tried, “if we’re going to live together... I mean, without buying separate beds... we’re going to have to deal with this _eventually._ And I think... I mean, it’s OK if you don’t, and nothing will change between us, but... I think you want this too, right? _”_

Steven glanced away, sighing. “Yeah. I do.”

“OK,” Connie continued, trying another reassuring smile. She wasn’t sure it was a good one, the way her stomach was doing flips, but Steven managed to look back up at her without her brain shutting down, so it was a start. “Well, I read once that if you’re afraid of something... the best way to get over it is to, ah... dive right in?”

“Huh?” Steven’s eyebrows both rose. Connie felt Steven’s gem becoming even warmer and, just in case, took a step back. “ _Oh._ ”

“But only if you’re OK with it!” Connie said quickly, trying to keep her own brain from going haywire at the very idea of what she was proposing. “I’m just... going to take this towel off, OK? I’m not going to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“No, no, I’m OK with it!” Steven stammered, although the way her shoulders stiffened suggested she was anything but. She shut her eyes tight, taking another deep breath. “You’re... you’re right, Connie. I want this too... I want to be with you.”

“OK,” Connie agreed. Her stomach took a break from doing flips to twist and Connie took a deep breath of her own, trying to tell herself all the things she’d tell Steven if the roles were reversed: that she was her girlfriend, that they loved each other more than anything, that she would be the last person in the universe to judge her.

Tentatively, she let go of Steven’s waist and took a step backwards from her. Feeling Steven’s gaze burning a hole in her, she steeled herself, shut her eyes tightly, and let go of the hand holding up her towel. With an almost cinematic flair, it fell to the ground in a pile around her feet.

Steven gasped, and automatically, ridiculously, Connie flinched, her brain screaming at her to put the towel back on this very instant. She wanted so much to cover herself, even though store-bought underwear was barely worse than the one-pieces she’d wear to the beach, but her arms stayed glued to her sides, stubbornly refusing to move.

She felt a pair of hands grip her own, lift them up, and she opened her eyes, startled. But it was, of course, only Steven, looking up at her with utter reverence, ear-splitting grin on her face and almost literal stars in her eyes.

“You’re so beautiful _,_ Connie!” she said, with that kind of complete sincerity that could only be Steven’s. Steven blinked, and Connie saw in the corner of eyes what looked like the beginnings of tears. “I’m the luckiest girl ever.”

Connie’s anxieties, her worries of what Steven might think – that she was all out of proportion, with limbs too muscular from tennis and swordfighting but still that tiny patch of stomach fat she couldn’t get rid of, that she didn’t shave her legs enough, that her armpit hair was unsightly, that her breasts were too small and her face too childish for anyone to ever consider her attractive, and nevermind the whole dark-skinned Indian girl thing which was a whole other bag of worms – she could almost feel all of those thoughts fading away, like little white butterflies.

Because Steven already loved her.

And what were most of those fears anyway, she thought, next to what Steven had to deal with, every single day of her life?

“I don’t think so,” Connie said, smiling softly and brushing a hand over Steven’s cheek. “ _I’m_ the luckiest girl ever.”

Steven let go of one of Connie’s hands to rub her eyes, but her smile didn’t fade away until she suddenly paused, as if realizing something. When she saw the blush rise back to Steven’s cheeks, Connie had a pretty good idea what Steven was thinking.

“You don’t have to take your clothes off too,” she said, as gently as possible. Steven flinched, closing her eyes, and Connie could tell just by looking that she was going through the exact same thoughts that she had just moments before. So she squeezed Steven’s hand, the one still holding hers.

Connie could practically hear Steven swallow, but she still looked up at Connie, squeezed her hand back, and gave her a small, awkward smile anyway.

“It’s like you said, right? Dive right in?” She gave a half-hearted shrug. “It’s only fair.”

“I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to.”

But Steven had that look, that “I’m not turning back now no matter what happens” look, and Connie knew there’d be no changing her mind. So Steven let go of her hand (although not before Connie could give it one last squeeze) and stepped back on wobbly legs.

Connie swallowed a lump in her throat as Steven reached for the hem of her pajama top, the pink one covered in big red hearts that Connie had once told her she liked. It wasn’t that Connie was afraid she wouldn’t find Steven attractive (impossible) or that she was still thinking of her as just a little kid (super gross) – she was just worried for her, afraid this whole idea had pushed things too far, that this was going to make Steven upset or make her dysphoria flare up or something else too horrible to even consider.

Connie opened her mouth to try to talk her out of it one more time, but Steven yanked the top over her head like it was on fire, nearly catching it under her shoulders, and it was on the floor before Connie had closed her mouth again. Steven’s now exposed gem burned brighter than the cheap bathroom fluorescent lights could ever manage, making Connie wince as the light bounced off the mirror and the shower tiles and turned the entire room a shade of bright pink only surpassed by Steven’s whole body.

Connie blinked, raising a hand to her eyes to look over at her. The heat around her gem had become so blistering that Connie could see it distorting the air around Steven’s stomach, making what Connie realized was actual steam rise into the air.

Without a moment of hesitation, Connie repeated the same thing Steven had just done with her – she took a quick step closer to Steven, took her hands in her own, and smiled at her gently as Steven opened one eye. When she saw Connie, she let out a deep breath, and the air in the room cooled, the pink light fading to a soft glow.

Connie took a step back, looking Steven up and down in a way that she hoped wasn’t too forward. It was hard to tell if Steven blushed when she did, since Steven was blushing so deeply already, but she heard Steven’s breath catch in her throat.

Connie looked at her girlfriend’s torso, bare except for her bra, lacy and pink – she remembered how Steven had to order it online because she’d been too embarrassed to get it from a store. Steven’s chest was small, compared to most women like her, as she’d only started hormone therapy recently, and it was still dotted with a number of unshaved hairs. She had much more armpit hair than Connie did, although Connie knew that already and it had never bothered her once, and Steven’s stomach stuck out from over her pajama bottoms in what most people would (irritatingly, offensively – why did people compare people to food?) call a “muffin top.”

And all Connie saw was Steven, pure-hearted, blushing, the sweetest, kindest person in the entire universe, the one who’d found her when she had nobody and given her a friend, a girlfriend, someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

“I told you I’m the luckiest girl,” she said, squeezing Steven’s very warm hands as tightly as she could. “You’re gorgeous, Steven.”

“You’re my girlfriend,” Steven said, looking away, but there was a smile on her face. “Of course you’d say that.”

“I mean it,” Connie replied, and she leaned up and planted a kiss on Steven’s cheek. Steven turned her head back towards her and, the moment she did, Connie closed her eyes and kissed her on the lips. She felt the warmth of Steven’s gem again, this time right next to her bare stomach, as Steven hesitated, then kissed her back. Steven put her hands in her hair, and Connie reached up and wrapped her arms around her neck, and the heat of Steven’s gem became a steady pulse, a pleasurable warmth, like her heartbeat.

Connie didn't break away from the kiss until Steven herself did, and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face at Steven’s rosy cheeks and wide, wavy smile, like a character in a Sunday comic. They’d kissed so many times and yet, for Steven, it always seemed to be the first.

Steven shook her head wildly. “Um... do I need to take my pants off too?”

“You don’t have to,” Connie replied, giggling, twirling one of Steven’s ringlets in her fingers.

“...Nah, I’m good,” said Steven, grinning, and Connie laughed. “So I guess we should go back to sleep then, huh, Connie?”

“We never slept at all though,” she said, the words hardly out of her mouth before Steven wrapped her arms around her waist and lifted her entire body up into the air, her stomach resting against the cooling warmth of Steven’s gem. Steven kissed her on the cheek, and she broke out into peals of laughter, kicking her legs, which caused Steven to let out that uh-huh-huh chuckle she loved so much.

“No burning me this time, OK?” said Connie as Steven walked backwards out of the bathroom, back towards the bed.

“I promise, I promise!” she laughed, spinning herself and Connie in circles until she collapsed with an “oomph” against their bed, the both of them ending up in a messy pile, Connie laying on top of her. Her gem felt comfortable against her now, almost like its own blanket.

She slid a hand down Steven’s sideburns, smiling down at her, but she didn’t get a chance to listen to the urge to kiss Steven again – Steven did it first, pulling Connie down towards her and kissing her, just once, just for a moment, the most chaste kiss Connie would have ever had if it wasn’t Steven she was having it with.

“Night, Connie,” said Steven.

“Good night, Steven,” said Connie.

And that was how the two of them remained for the rest of the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to nagginggargoyle for betaing this fic for me!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fusion Dance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15630279) by [wordbending](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending)




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